During our extensive Dying Light 2 anniversary Q&A, we couldn’t refrain from asking Techland Franchise Director Tymon Smektala about his and the studio’s feelings for Dead Island 2.
Before branching off with Dying Light, Techland released two successful Dead Island games, the original and the Riptide standalone expansion. Now that the troubled sequel is finally about to debut, what are their thoughts? Here’s what he told us.
Of course, in business terms, it’s competition. But to be honest, I think that you wouldn’t find a person at Techland that wouldn’t like to play Dead Island because it’s our baby. It’s the game we created and we are extremely interested in what the release will bring. Knowing how difficult it is to make games, I have nothing but fingers crossed for the developers of Dead Island 2, and I hope they succeed. I believe that Dying Light has its own identity so even if, on some level, it is a competition, we are doing a couple of things quite differently. There is space for several games within the same genre with a similar style as long as they stand out.
So nothing but good luck to the developers of Dead Island 2. We know that the development was extremely difficult. It started a long time ago and was handled by a couple of studios, so I hope the game will not suffer in the end.
Honestly, I’m extremely curious about the final product. At Techland, we are as interested as anyone else in Dead Island 2. Once again, nothing but goodwill and support. It’s difficult to make a great game, so I hope it all goes well for Dambuster studios and Dead Island 2 turns out to be a good game.
Dead Island 2 launches on April 28th, featuring an intriguing procedural dismemberment system called FLESH. For its part, Techland has exceeded 30 million units sold with the Dying Light franchise and is also working on an open world fantasy RPG based on a new IP.
